On the eleventh of January 2010, English band You Me At Six released their sophomore album, Hold Me Down. Their first major label release, it reached number five on the UK Albums Chart and is certified gold in the country. To celebrate its tenth anniversary, the band embarked on a series of shows across the United Kingdom, where they would play it in its entirety, front to back, and it was an opportunity I simply could not miss.

At the time of release, I was already a You Me At Six fan and had seen them live for the first time, as main support on Paramore's Brand New Eyes tour. A month later, Hold Me Down hit the shelves, and I remember buying it in London, where my older brother took us for a weekend. I left an East London HMV branch with a pile of CDs the height of the Eiffel Tower, glad to finally have access to music that was not available in my rock-deprived country, and it included several copies of Hold Me Down- I had friends who wanted their own too. In June of that same year, You Me At Six played the Nouveau Casino, in Paris, as part of a headline European tour, a show and a day that would mark a permanent change in my life, but I didn't know yet, at the time. How could I? In the meantime were some of the hardest times in my life, only the start of them, it seemed, and Hold Me Down was one of the records I used to play every day in an attempt to stay afloat. It would spin in my little stereo every morning before university and, chances are, it would also play in the shiny blue iPod my friend's then-boyfriend had given me because he didn't have any use for it in the end. It would be my comfort every time I felt down, the music I would turn on loud, the cliché of the teenager slamming the bedroom door because mum and dad just don't understand, though the issues ran much deeper.

I have been a You Me At Six fan for twelve years of my life now, and I don't want to say I have had a love-hate relationship with them because it isn't true. I simply am a human being, and I relate to sort of their art in different, closer ways than others. An album like Hold Me Down will forever be a prominent part of the tapestry of my life, a visible piece of the puzzle. It's a time capsule of the sweetest kind. Listening to it takes me back to the music videos, and all the little things we used to watch on YouTube, the running jokes that only mean something to the old-timers, things about ice cream being too cold, what's butter, something about sheep in a field, the Liquid Confidence behind the scenes footage and the JLS dance moment. (I don't actually know if this bit was ever iconic to the fanbase as a whole, but, just like the kids say, it lives rent-free in my mind. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be on YouTube anymore.)

On the morning of the show, I sat down in St. Pancras Station, in London, in front of the Starbucks no one can ever find when I tell them, and I played Hold Me Down in preparation for the show, something to get me hyped up. Playing The Blame Game came around, and I felt tiny tears, almost invisible, insignificant to anyone but me, during the line "You hold me down by keeping me around," and I realised I had never really understood that line before. There is something magical about finding new meaning in art that has been an ever-present part of your existence, deep in your blood, for the past eleven and a half years of your life.

The show was held at Kingston's Pryzm and was, once again, organised by the still absolutely amazing Banquet Records. I don't think I could praise them anymore- they truly are the best thing since sliced bread (and that's a French person saying that.) A night that, a decade ago, would have started in the daytime, queuing against all sorts of ludicrous weather, was birthed in the Wetherspoons pub across the street this time around, in front of a glass of Kopparberg's Cherry Rum. Nineteen, twenty-year-old me would have loved the barrier. (She even kinda threw a tantrum on Tumblr about it once because she was upset, back in the day, but that's a shameful story for another lifetime.) Thirty-one-year-old me wanted to crowdsurf and reclaim the music she thought had been tainted by someone else's influence.
Never again.
Hold Me Down is mine. This is not a proprietary statement. It's the admittance that nevermind what other people did to me, nevermind the stains they left on my life, music that is pretty much part of my DNA cannot be touched nor removed. It is mine for as long as I choose.

For all those reasons, I knew I would get emotional during You Me At Six's set. It's not even the cliché of me crying for no valid reason, bawling my eyes out because why the hell not, I love this song, or this child on TV at Christmas time is just so stinking cute. It's a mixture of nostalgia, melancholy, pure joy, and appreciation of how far I've come since I was a nineteen-year-old girl with a bad fringe who thought she was so hard when Sean Smith's part came on during The Consequence. Funnily enough, that's the song during which I started crying. The Consequence. The first goddamn song on the album. Even for me, that's a new record. They were about two lines into it when I felt tears welling up in my eyes, and they were not to stop for most of the set. This album is a part of me, it's in my bones. As of last Friday, I have seen You Me At Six live twenty-three times, unless I am awful at math and remembering things, and I have heard Underdog in the flesh a similar amount of times. The nineteenth of November 2021 was the first time it made me cry.

Hold Me Down also takes me back to the questionable art every one of us used to make back in the day, those lyric drawings in several fonts that were plastered all over Tumblr. There are so many fitting one-liners in Hold Me Down, and I know I made several of these drawings. Lyrically, this album will stand the test of my time because of those clever, sometimes sassy one-liners. "I've got real big plans and such bad thoughts" (The Consequence) // "I'm down, down, but definitely not out" (Underdog) // "You hold me down by keeping me around" (Playing The Blame Game) // "And everybody was kissing on fire, and we all got burnt" (Safer To Hate Her) // "You've got nothing to lose, except for me and you" (Liquid Confidence) // "Dearest enemy, you should have never trusted me, you bitch" (Contagious Chemistry) // "I'm a man of my words and my words will never change" (Trophy Eyes) // "Remember when you were my boat and I was your sea, together we'd float so delicately" (Fireworks) Just to quote a few. (The Contagious Chemistry one is admittedly not something we would use in lyrics in 2021, but it was my favourite song back in the day, so I had to include it.)
(Also, can we talk about the fact that Trophy Eyes, as in, the band, named themselves after that specific song?)

I found this on Pinterest, so, unfortunately, I don't know who made this.

During the build-up to the show, out of complete superstition, I did not say anything about it online, as if me being openly excited about something carried the risk of ruining it. On the day of, when I was safely on English land, I made up for lost time, and I think everyone who came across me was sick to the back teeth of hearing me talk about the one song I was most excited to hear: There's No Such Thing As Accidental Infidelity. It received its first-ever live performance on Friday night and, despite frontman Josh Franceschi warning the crowd of potential rustiness, it sounded just as perfect as I always imagined it to be. I paid a tribute to my decade-ago self in today's fashion and crowdsurfed to Aled Phillips' part while wearing a Kids In Glass Houses t-shirt. Some parts of yourself can never die.

After finishing up with the album's closing track, the wonderfully heartbreaking Fireworks, You Me At Six came back for an encore composed of SUCKAPUNCH, Lived A Lie, Take On The World, and Beautiful Way. Did I emotionally need it? No. I would have been content leaving the room after the last notes of Fireworks. Did I mind? Also, no. Despite it not being my favourite song, SUCKAPUNCH shines in a live setting, and its packed energy is mindblowing. Lived A Lie is one of the band's most fun singles. I got someone to carry me on their shoulders during Take On The World, and my love for the track only grows. Beautiful Way is one of You Me At Six's best recent numbers, one of the reasons why I still love them, why I would still go the extra mile for them. Maybe I wouldn't queue at stupid o'clock in the snow anymore, warming my hands up in an Asda bathroom in suburban Edinburgh while wondering if my plane home is going to leave the next morning. Maybe I wouldn't chase the elusive barrier anymore. But I will always want to celebrate the shiny parts of my life and, as far as puzzle pieces go, You Me At Six are pretty golden.

The next step in this lifelong celebration takes place in Paris, in March 2022, and you're all invited. It's followed by another show that will shatter my heartstrings in the loveliest manner, the tenth anniversary of the band's third record, Sinners Never Sleep, in June.

In April 2021, Welsh post-hardcore outfit Holding Absence released their sophomore album, The Greatest Mistake Of My Life, sending them to well-deserved higher spheres, and allowing them to gather an even greater number of fans and followers. Due to the touring situation being all over the place, for the most part, they only managed to tour the record this late October and early November, and this band holding quite a special spot in my heart, off I traipsed to England to see them a few more times.

I first discovered Holding Absence's music in March 2017, when they landed the main support slot on We Are The Ocean's farewell tour, which I attended in its entirety. (Granted, it was only three shows.) Since the first show, at Glasgow's Cathouse, even if I was ill and exhausted, the band's sound stuck with me and, despite a few misses over the years, I managed to catch on a stage a number of times, the last one taking place at Slam Dunk South, this past September. I think that, from the moment I managed to properly see them again after that initial tour, I have decided there would be no way in hell I would miss shows I could attend again and, from the weird sort-of-post-pandemic-but-not-really limbo we find ourselves currently stuck in, I stand by the thought.
I just don't want to miss Holding Absence again.

All three shows I attended (Newcastle, Manchester, and London) started with High Wycombe's As Everything Unfolds, undoubtedly the greatest thing to have ever come out of this town. (Which is, coincidentally, where I saw them for the first time.) They, too, finally get to tour their debut album, the excellent Within Each Lies The Other, released in March 2021. Despite them still being a quite young band, they have plenty of followers all three nights, and singalongs can be heard at every show. I might have even spotted a moshpit situation at the Electric Ballroom. As Everything Unfolds are exactly as I remember them, fantastic on a stage, and they so easily hold the audience in the palm of their hand, night after night. It is going to be beyond exciting to watch them leap from milestone to milestone, and I can't wait to be along for the ride.
(As Everything Unfolds will be performing Within Each Lies The Other in its entirety at the Camden Assembly on the 25th of February 2022, and a good chunk of the tickets are gone. In March of next year, they will also appear on the European leg of Holding Absence's tour. Give them a listen here - Grayscale is a banger.)

Hailing straight from Sydney, Australia, Yours Truly are a little miracle during a rainy, cold week. In all honesty, I only believed they were on my side of the world when I saw them in front of me, on stage, even though it was all a bit silly, and they had been in the United Kingdom for over a week at this point. I first discovered the Australians when they supported State Champs in the summer of 2019, saw them again on a happy accident at Chicago's Riot Fest, and their debut album Self Care was one of my favourites last year. I have lived with this record for so long that it was almost surreal hearing it in the flesh, played live, and I still can't quite compute it. (Even though I still haven't heard Undersize. Next time.) The audience reaction was different all three nights. Newcastle offered quiet but invested singalongs. Manchester saw louder singing and a little more dancing. London was a straight-up riot, and I managed to crowdsurf twice. On stage, all I see is a band eager to conquer the world, a band I want to see doing just that. Their older tracks, such as Circles and High Hopes (both from their 2019 EP Afterglow), are known by quite a few people and could easily become pop-punk classics. They have mastered the "devastating lyrics set to an infectious tune" vibe in songs like Funeral Home or Together, and their latest single, Walk Over My Grave, full of angst and heaviness, shows they could be heading in any direction from now on. Frontwoman Mikaila Delgado's charisma is to be commended, she is simply captivating. Full disclaimer: Yours Truly were the main reason I crossed the Channel for these shows, and I am ecstatic I did. It was not something to be missed.
(Yours Truly are coming back to our shores in April and May as main support on Against The Current's headline tour. They have also been announced at High Five Summer Fest, a cool alternative weekender in Stockholm, Sweden, in July. Check them out here, and read the Self Care review here.)

As mentioned earlier, Holding Absence are finally touring off the back of their sophomore album, the perfect The Greatest Mistake Of My Life, and it's only natural that they start these shows with its first three tracks: instrumental opener Alive, Celebration Song, and Curse Me With Your Kiss. There is something undeniably life-affirming about the first words one sings, screams, belts out, whatever, being "I'm alive" with all your soul and all your heart.
And I guess it's how I always feel seeing Holding Absence live.

One of the reasons why I hold their Scala show, in December 2019, so dear in my raging emo heart is that at the time, I was feeling beyond broken. I was approximately ten days into my sick leave, having to hide everything I was doing outside of my tiny flat because "I literally cannot face being polite and cheery for four thousand people every day, and I'm mentally exhausted of having so much demanded of me with no reward" does not mix well with "actually, live music helps me feel better and stops the brain pain and existential dread for an hour" from an HR and managerial standpoint. I simply was not well at all. That night, I met up with my friend Mia, who had flown from Milan, Italy for the show, and we met up with some other friends of mine in the line. I remember, at some point, opening the door between the main room of the maze that the Scala is and the bar area and finding another two of my friends on the other side, not knowing they were going to be there. Being surrounded by people who loved and cared about me took this show from "this band I love is playing a discography I love just as much in full" to "I am with people who make my heart feel lighter" territory. The two combined made the experience extra special. 

Since then, I have somewhat always associated Holding Absence's live shows and music in general as a place where I feel safe and loved, and nothing could have made this sensation more tangible than starting a show screaming the words "I'm alive" with a grin that could not be wiped off my face.
Outside of my ramblings and emotions, let's be real and honest for a minute here.
Holding Absence is one hell of a live band. I remember the first times I saw them, knowing in my heart of hearts that they were something special. Almost five years down the line (Christ), their shows have that something fully realised. It's a feeling I can't quite put into words, but they are the kind of band that offers something from everyone, wherever you find yourself in life, and maybe it's just a lot of heart, and everyone can relate to that, but...Yeah. There has to be a word, somewhere, in any language, really, that puts this comforting, hearty feeling into words, that something special, that explains why Holding Absence have become as beloved as they are and why they seem to be growing and becoming even more appreciated as time goes on.

It could very well be because they are nothing short of a fantastic band, and their music hits the spot every time.
Music-wise, they can do it all. Within the little, poetic, beautiful world they have created for themselves, a world that could head in any direction, they know how to do everything. They know how to do the raw emotion. They know how to do the straight-up bangers that you just can tell are going to become classics, Emo Night crowd-pleasers and all, in five or ten years' time (Christ, the sequel.) They know how to do the heaviness- nomoreroses sees quite the intense moshpits every night. And they know how to lean into something softer and more vulnerable. Maybe it ties prettily with the idea that there is something for everyone in their music.

Every band seems to have a longer song that seeps into everyone's heart and grows to become a fan favourite against all odds. Jimmy Eat World have 23 and Goodbye Sky Harbor. The Wonder Years have I Just Want To Sell Out My Funeral. Taylor Swift's ten-minute version of All Too Well is currently topping the charts. There is always one.
Holding Absence has Wilt.
The six-minute-and-a-half-long song, a heartbreaking tale of a love ending, has become immensely popular despite its length, as is acknowledged in London, I believe, by frontman Lucas Woodland. It starts heavy and sees the usual moshing and crowdsurfing, and ends with "little people," Woodland's words again, carried on people's shoulders for a beautiful few minutes. See, I love being carried on people's shoulders at shows, but as someone who often attends alone and is generally plagued by social awkwardness, it's hard for me to just ask. It took me until London to get there, but it was a hundred percent worth it. I don't know what it is about being perched on someone's shoulders at a show, seeing the crowd and the stage from up above, a somewhat more intense feeling of communion and connection to others, but it gets me every time.
In the future, I do hope Holding Absence save a special spot for Wilt at every show, not just because it's my favourite song, but so we can all feel this way again, find comfort and company in the middle of an all-too-relatable track.

If there is one word I regularly use to describe a Holding Absence live experience, it's safe. I feel safe in their crowds, and I feel safe among the people around me, even after a drunk person tries to crowdsurf, rolls back, and slams their leg on my head (Manchester), even after I get a bike-shaped bruise (London.) It's not about the usual crowd movement that happens at heavy shows. It's about the people. I always feel among friends, whether I know someone in the room or not. The feeling was heightened by actually making friends at the end of the London show, and I hope I get to feel this way at every Holding Absence show to come. Nothing compares to ending the night with a heart so full. 

(Holding Absence are playing Exeter and Bexhill, of all places in the world, alongside Enter Shikari in November. They are also supporting Funeral For A Friend in January (how huge!) and touring the European Union in March 2022. This goes without saying, but check them out here.)

In July 2020, after having to postpone it due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Bury Tomorrow released their anticipated sixth full-length record, Cannibal. In the words of frontman Dani Winter-Bates, the album was a "cathartic process to address some of the darkest moments [I've] had in [my] life" as well as an attempt to normalise mental health-related conversations. "The normalisation of mental health is what saves lives. I want people to see the light in the dark. If they delve into that they can find solace in the discussion, the normalisation, the positive action by discussing this. The term cannibal refers to being eaten away by your own thoughts but also eaten away by other humans. We're not kind to ourselves, let alone kind to each other." The Southampton-based outfit was set to play a series of intimate release shows, which were ultimately postponed to November 2021, a year and four months after the album had hit the shelves and reached a well-deserved number 10 spot in the UK charts.

This small tour starts in Kingston, in one of the branches of the nightclub Pryzm, organised by what is one of the most important and popular record stores and promoters in the country and the alternative scene, Banquet Records. After landing in Gatwick after a stressful flight, I checked in at the nearest Travelodge and, sure enough, my first stop in town was the small and comforting shop. I don't know how much I have addressed this before, but I tend to feel uncomfortable in record stores because I'm a girl who doesn't look like the music she listens to for the most part, and because I worry I will be judged for liking emo bands and metalcore records better than revered classics. The four walls of Banquet Records, on Eden Street, Kingston-Upon-Thames, are one of the places where I have never had to worry about such insecurities and elitism. Walking in and seeing the posters plastered from floor to ceiling, the Polaroid pictures with various artists stapled to the counter, and all my favourite bands represented everywhere fills me with a sense of comfort. For this review, I had set myself the objective of being a little less sentimental than I have recently been, but I always have to give credit where credit's due. Banquet Records is an oasis of comfort for me, as well as a fucking fantastic place to buy music, online and in person.

As announced by the band on social media prior to the show, the set starts at 8pm and afterwards, a free meet and greet will be hosted in the venue, though, while on stage, frontman Dani Winter-Bates explain how he hates the term "meet and greet" and just wants to hang out with fans after a long break. Throughout the years, Bury Tomorrow have been extremely vocal about paid meet and greets, and they have always made a point about meeting fans after every show, no matter the size. I don't like using such a turn of phrase because I don't want it to set unrealistic standards on the bands I care about, but when going to a Bury Tomorrow show, it's almost a given that you will meet the band afterwards if you stick around for a little while. Though I am aware that buying a ticket to a show, any show, does not entitle me to meet a band and spend time with them, I love that it always comes as a bonus, and I immensely respect Bury Tomorrow for it.

This series of four shows (starting in Kingston and followed by stops in Leeds, London, and the band's hometown, Southampton) is still labelled "Cannibal release shows," but the setlist covers most of Bury Tomorrow's career, from 2012's Lionheart to more recent tracks such as Choke, The Grey (VIXI), which had been released in 2019, ahead of the record, or the album's title track, Cannibal. It is actually the same setlist they performed at Slam Dunk Festival, back in September and, just like they did back then, the shows feel like a celebration of Bury Tomorrow coming back after an almost two-year break that saw the biggest changes they have ever experienced as a band. (In July 2021, the departure of founding member, rhythm guitarist, and clean vocalist Jason Cameron was announced. They are currently performing with Tom Pendergast on vocals and synths and Ed Hartwell on rhythm guitar.) These shows feel like a band telling us that they have been shaken, sure, but they will still stay here, and they are not going anywhere. At the end of this tour, they are even heading into the studio to record what will be their seventh full-length album. Bury Tomorrow are not going anywhere.

For the personal story-time moment of the review, we'll start with a stupid fact about myself: I have chronic sinus problems due to one of them being deformed, and I had suffered quite a bit the days prior to the show. On the day of, I thought I was doing well until about halfway through the hour-long flight to Gatwick Airport, when the extremely dry air of the plane messed it all up again. I ended up having to attend the show wearing glasses, which I never do, and, in true me-fashion, I put them away to safely head into the moshpit for Lionheart, then left the heart of the action, and put them back on for the remainder of the set. I could probably try to find some inspiring message in the way I fought against my own shortcomings to attend a metalcore show and be an idiot but, the truth is, I just thought it was a funny story. 

Bury Tomorrow's set in Pryzm marked my forty-third time seeing them perform live and, as I explained on my personal Instagram account, it is an odd number to celebrate, but I do because it means they now are the band I have seen the most. Those forty-three shows have spanned over the course of almost a decade, starting in November 2012 in Paris, and I believe 2015 was the year I saw them the most, mostly due to me following the entire first Stage Invasion tour. Come to think of it, seeing them in a nightclub in Kingston, a small venue by all standards, a sizeable difference from the packed tents at Slam Dunk and the larger venues of the Black Flame tour, in December 2019, took me back to those three odd weeks of April 2015 where I spent more hours than anyone should on various trains and coach services, was not given a break by my also chronic tendonitis, and almost broke my hand. The most important part of this celebration and the one that has hit me the hardest in Kingston is that Bury Tomorrow is something constant in my life, and I guess in many other fans' lives. I promise it's not the "people always leave/sometimes they come back" metaphor I stole from One Tree Hill again. It's just a fact. They are constant. They are here. They always deliver, and they never disappoint. Buying a ticket to a Bury Tomorrow show, nevermind where in the world it is, means I will have a brilliant time, probably mutter "fuck it" to myself before marching headfirst into a moshpit, like I'm the most confident person in the world, hear some of my favourite songs, and be blown away by a band I truly adore. Seeing them live is like pressing a reset button for me. From then onwards, things are okay, and we're going back to the start, back to where you know you're safe and okay. They really are a safe place for me. It feels like catching up with old friends but in music form.

For some people, I imagine describing a band's live performance as "you know what you're getting into every single time, without fail" might sound boring and unexciting. They might love the chaos and uncertainty more than anything else and, who could blame them? I do love a bit of chaos and uncertainty. But in this case, it means the world to have something I know will always be here to welcome me home. And the last thing Bury Tomorrow are on a stage is boring and unexciting. They are a group of musicians who knows where their strengths lay and use them in every last song and performance, take what they do best and push it a step further every time. 

And there's something so goddamn inspiring in that.

And for the forty-third time in my life, I had a fantastic time watching them concentrate all that energy, all their strength, and create madness and mayhem from the stage.